No Place on Earth (2013) Michiana Jewish Film Festival Monday, May 20, 2013, 5:00 PM
Directed by Janet Tobias
Rated PG-13, 82 minutes
English, German and Yiddish with English subtitles

In October 1942, Esther Stermer, the matriarch of a Jewish family in the Ukraine, leads her family underground to hide from the pursuing Nazis—and stays nearly a year and a half. Their harrowing story of survival living in near total darkness in two cold, damp caves is one like no other ever told. It was life... like No Place On Earth.

LEARN | Pre-performance Talks:

Film narrator and featured spelunker Chris Nicola is scheduled to speak at 4pm. Free for ticket holders.  

Hannah Arendt (2012) Michiana Jewish Film Festival Monday, May 20, 2013, 7:30 PM
Directed by Margarethe Von Trotta
Not Rated, 109 minutes
English and German with English subtitles

The sublime Barbara Sukowa reteams with director Margarethe von Trotta (Vision, Rosa Luxemburg) for her brilliant new biopic of influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann and the Jewish councils—introduced her now-famous concept of the “Banality of Evil.” Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, von Trotta beautifully turns the often invisible passion of thought into immersive, dramatic cinema.  

Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story (2011) Michiana Jewish Film Festival Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 5:00 PM
Directed by Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot
Not Rated, 87 minutes

 On July 4, 1976, Yonatan Netanyahu led a group of Israeli commandos into an airline terminal in Entebbe, Uganda, killing a stunned group of terrorists and evacuating 103 hostages. Follow Me is an intimate story that penetrates the tough exterior of Yoni, brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who lost his life at Entebbe. Using Yoni's own poetry, letters and prose, the film delves into the mind of this reluctant young hero.  

The Other Son (2012) Michiana Jewish Film Festival Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 7:30 PM
Directed by Lorraine Levy
Rated PG-13, 105 minutes
English, French, Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

As he prepares to join the Israeli army for his national service, Joseph discovers that he was inadvertently switched at birth with Yassin, the son of a Palestinian family from the West Bank. This revelation turns the lives of these two families upside-down, forcing them to reassess their respective identities, values and beliefs.  

Orchestra of Exiles (2012) Michiana Jewish Film Festival Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 5:00 PM
Directed by Josh Aronson
Not Rated, 85 minutes

Orchestra of Exiles is the suspenseful chronicle of how one man helped save Europe’s premiere Jewish musicians from obliteration by the Nazis during WWII. In the early 1930s, Hitler began firing Jewish musicians across Europe. Overcoming extraordinary obstacles, violinist Bronislaw Huberman moved these great musicians to Palestine and formed a symphony that would become the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.